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About This Song

Words: Shelby Darnell (1932)

"A fixture at Atlantic City's Steel Pier area for years, Bartha is chiefly remembered for hiring a young trumpeter, Ziggy Elman, who went on to join Benny Goodman. The provenance of this song is unclear. It's litigiously close to a British music hall song, Leslie Sarony's "Ain't It Grand to Be Bloomin' Well Dead," although it is unclear who came first. The American version is notable for the fact that Earth makes Hell look like Heaven. It was pulled immediately after release...possibly because someone at RCA thought it was too outre"